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Heya baby! I love you so much. Let me tell you about what’s going on in your life now that you’re 10 months young. Our typical day this month has been significantly different, not only because you are rapidly growing up and learning all kinds of new skills, but also because Daddy hurt his back 3 weeks ago and has been home recovering since then. It’s been a king of blessing, except for the part about Daddy’s back being hurt. It’s nice to have him home though, even if he can’t pick you up. Things like putting you to bed, walking with you, and changing your diaper have been near impossible for him to do, but he’s making up for it by playing with you on the floor, where he spends most of his time laying these days, resting his back.
Typical Day
Our typical day has evolved into this… you make your first peep somewhere between 6am and 6:30am most mornings, at which point I go greet your smiling face, warm up a bottle and bring you up to our bedroom where we all hang out. You drink your first breakfast and then Daddy and I triangle you in, on the bed, so that you can’t fall off the edges and then we let you climb all over us, the wall, roll around in the sheets, crawl all around and generally expend a bunch of that pent-up energy you have from being confined to your crib all night long. These morning sessions are becoming increasingly violent. You are fully mobile now, with the exception of walking on your own. And you will pull up on anything that presents itself as convenient to you at the moment including Daddy’s glasses, Momma’s hair, the wall, a pillow. Your grabby little hands are everywhere. And you will spend a good hour climbing on Mount Daddy or Mount Momma. We’re never sure what exactly you’re trying to accomplish, but you will wear yourself, and us, out with all your climbing to nowhere.
Then, we all get up and move into the living room where Daddy does his stretches on the floor and we all have playtime. I can leave you upstairs with him while I do my chores since I finally got your baby gate installed a couple of weeks ago, a couple of days after you started crawling. And since Daddy and Grandpa Tranmer built you a new railing upstairs I don’t have to worry about you tumbling through any slats. We’ve also gotten very creative with the half dozen ottomans we have around the house. They’re all strategically placed so as to keep you from pushing the buttons on the electronics, playing with the power cord or getting into momma’s candy dishes or laptop. Our living room is a big circle of chairs and tables and ottomans that you can pull up on and cruise around. You seem much more content since you’ve been able to get around on your own.
This is also the time of day when we hold our Beanie Baby Adoption ceremony. Your Granny and Grandpa Tranmer bought Daddy every Beanie Baby known to mankind at the height of Beanie Baby mania and recently gave us the astounding collection, all in mint condition. They aren’t worth any cash, as they had hoped they would be someday. But what we’re getting out of it is even better than money. We literally have a Noah’s ark of animals (Daddy wants to build you an ark to put them all in someday when his back is better). We have upwards of 150-200 unique animals for you to learn and play with. It’s awesome. I think Momma and Daddy enjoy it more than you do at this point. Anyway, every morning I stick my hand in the box and blindly pull out one new animal that we adopt and add to our little family. I think we’ve adopted about 25 to date. We’ll be busy adopting for quite some time yet. I have a big toy tub in the corner where they all sleep when they’re not being played with. So far we have everything from a Butterfly to a Buffalo to a Seahorse to an Anteater in our growing family.
After adoptions, we have second breakfast. These days you usually eat a half a banana and a piece of toast (cut into bite-size chunks) or a half a banana and a bowl of rice cereal. We vary it a little, but nanas are your favorite so it’s a morning staple. And after breakfast, we play again until it’s time for your 9am nap. You’re always ready to go back to bed at this point, and you usually sleep until around 11am. We had about 3 days were your naps were interrupted by you pulling up and not knowing how to get back down. Before we had the chance to get too worried about it, you figured out how to plop back down and we haven’t had any problems since. I still haven’t taken the bumper out of your crib. I’m dreading the head-thumping I know will ensue following it’s removal.
The rest of the day varies depending on what we have planned, but you almost always get an afternoon nap, going down somewhere between 1pm and 2:30pm and waking up sometime before 4:00pm. You eat lots of big girl food for lunch and dinner. Whenever I can feed you whatever Daddy and I are eating, I do. The baby food jars you get are usually of the Earth’s Best Level 3 variety. I also specially cook your own food for you. I make you a variety of meaty soups and pastas and then I puree it. Lately I’ve been adding small chunks back in, like small pieces of whole pasta, so you have something to chew on. And in between all that, we play a lot. We still go walking sometimes, but you’re getting so big I’m wearing you in the carrier less and less and opting for the stroller instead, or leaving you with Daddy while I go for a quick run. Bedtime is still 6pm. We’ve tried pushing it back later and we end up with a cranky baby who wakes up at the same time or earlier than when we put her down when she wants to go to bed at 6pm. Works for me.
You still have only the 2 cute little tooths with which to chomp your food, but they peek out when you smile now. So cute!
9 Month Check Up
Your Dr’s appointment ended up being a couple of weeks after your 9 month post, so here’s what we found out. You are in the Fifth percentile for height, meaning 95% of babies your age are taller than you. Haha. You inherited your Mima’s stature. And your head size? Eighty-eighth percentile. Yes, you heard me right. Your head is larger than 88% of babies your age. You inherited Daddy’s head. Hahahaha. Now, before you think that I’m making fun of you, let me remind you that there is no cuter baby on the planet as far as I’m concerned, and a great deal of the population agrees with me. Literally everywhere we go, I am stopped so that people can admire you, smile at you, talk to you, and comment on just how beautiful you are. I think one of the reasons this is so is that you are proportioned differently than most 10 month olds out there. You are much more “babyish” in appearance than other girls your age, and it makes people stop and admire. Well, that and you ARE truly beautiful. Of course, the doctor assured us that everything will even out in time and not to worry. You’re just petite and have a lot of brains. You weigh almost 18 pounds, right around 22nd percentile, and perfectly solid for your height.
I remain convinced that the only reason you were not walking on your own 2 months ago is your top-heaviness. You continue to demand our balance so that you can explore the house on your feet as much as we can stand. Walking, walking, walking…and you’re barely holding on these days. Just one parental finger in each baby hand to help correct any slight miscalculations.
Fun Stuff
Some of the cute things you’re doing these days…
- Eating *every* fuzz you come across. It can be a white speck on the sofa 12 feet across the room and you will scuttle your little self right over to it, pick it up and put it straight in your mouth. I’m astounded that your diapers aren’t filled with pink and white cotton every day.
- Saying Dada and Mama. Dada was last week’s favorite. This week it’s Momma. You know it means us. I think you’re still working on assigning the appropriate name to the appropriate person, although I’m not sure. You just might understand. Sometimes it seems like you do.
- Giving “hugs”! You’ve started laying your head down on our shoulders for a few second at a time while we’re holding you and kind of nestling. For a baby who has never been much for cuddles, this is pure heaven for us. Please keep doing it. It’s the best thing since your first smile, and then your first laugh. You also actually reach out for me, crawl up into my lap, and make it very obvious when you want to be held. That’s all new this month. Momma likey.
- Doing all kinds of cool things with your hands. You wave by opening and closing your fist (in response to us waving to you). You clap your hands on ours whenever we offer you a flat palm. You clapped your own hands together yesterday for the first time, but you’re still getting used to that. And my favorite? “Number One!” (say it like you’re the winning team) I say that to you and show you my finger, and you will point your own in the air and smile. Oh my word. So adorable. Sometimes you get confused and inverse it so it’s Number 3. Cute either way.
- Listen to stories. You won’t sit still on our lap to read yet, but if we leave you on the floor so you can move around a little, you can make it through a whole book. And you don’t need us to read to you. You love to flip through the pages (not in order of course) of your boardbooks and look at the pictures. You pick them up, turn them over, look at the back, turn a page, turn the book around and around.
- Mimicking everything we do. Throat-clearing, noises, lip-smacking, waving, banging. If you can figure out how to copy us, you do.
And a Few Other Random Facts..
Your personality is emerging more every day. You continue to be the happiest baby I’ve ever met. You’re a little dubious of strangers at first, but if they give you a few minutes to observe from a distance, you warm up to most anyone. With us, you are all smiles, all the time. There is almost never a time when I can’t get you to smile back at me. It’s like breathing to you. I am so blessed by your cheery disposition. It’s something I’m extremely grateful for.
But just because you’re all smiles, doesn’t mean you don’t have attitude. You have gotten very good at expressing irritation. Which you do. Often. I see myself in you when you make those, “I want it!” or “Uh, no you didn’t!” faces. It’s kind of cute and kind of scary.
Despite my hope that you would someday learn to sleep anywhere when you’re tired, like a normal baby, you will simply go without sleep if you don’t have your crib. You will sometimes sleep in your car seat, but only when you are utterly exhausted and full and have your binky and your blanky and complete quiet. It’s just one of those things that makes you unique. You love your crib and are a great sleeper in it, but you gotta have your crib.
And an eyeball update. I would say your eyes are officially no longer blue. They are still very hard to figure out. I’m not sure what color they are. But I would say most of the time they are steel grey around the outside and a golden amber in the middle. Silver and Gold, precious metal eyes. My little angel girl.
Well, that’s what I have for you today. Another month for the books. Love you, Waywee. I can’t belive your first birthday is only 2 months away!